Human disease

Disease: signs and symptoms

Disease may be acute, chronic, malignant, or benign. Of these terms, chronic and acute have to do with the duration of a disease, malignant and benign with its potentiality for causing death.

An acute disease process usually begins abruptly and is over soon. Acute appendicitis, for example, is characterized by the sudden onset of nausea, vomiting, and pain usually localized in the lower right side of the abdomen. It usually requires immediate surgical treatment. The term chronic refers to a process that often begins very gradually and then persists over a long period. For example, ulcerative colitis ... (101 of 23,268 words)